Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D. is a materials physicist, self-owned, a benevolent and tolerant Objectivist, a husband and father, the owner of a materials characterization laboratory, and above all a thinking individualist. The critical battle of our day is the conflict between the individual and the state. We must be ever vigilant and constant defenders of the equal sovereign rights of the individual to life, liberty, property, and the personal pursuit of happiness.

Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at thinking, intelligent individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

28 June 2010

The Moon Effect Called the Greenhouse Effect on Earth

Despite the fact that NASA scientists are among the foremost promoters of catastrophic global warming due to man's use of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions, NASA scientists have long known that the moon exhibits a warming effect which is similar to the effect which on Earth is said to be due to greenhouse gases. Calculations in anticipation of the Moon Landings indicated that such a net warming effect should be expected and subsequent measurements on the moon's surface during landings confirmed this effect. What is this effect due to? We will discuss that below, but let us first examine the greenhouse effect.

It is commonly claimed that the Earth can be treated as a black body which is in equilibrium with the incoming radiation of the sun and the outgoing radiation into space from the black body Earth. Calculations based on this simple model indicate the Earth has an average temperature 33C warmer than it should be. It is said to be this much warmer due to its atmosphere, in particular due to water vapor primarily and other greenhouse gases such as CO2 secondarily.

A black body absorbs 100% of the energy that falls upon it and it re-emits energy based on the Stefan-Boltzmann formula. When the black body is in thermal equilibrium, it emits energy at the same rate as energy is absorbed. The theory assumes the outer surface of the black body is extremely thin, though this matters little to the calculation provided the underlying material has a fixed temperature gradient with the maximum temperature on the outside surface and a radiation absorption length which is extremely short. For the surface depth to be unimportant, the amount of radiation falling on the surface should also not be changing in time.

These are not conditions satisfied by the moon or the Earth. The moon surface heats up when radiation from the sun is incident upon it and that heat is conducted downward into the rock and dust of the moon surface. The local topography of the surface, the distribution of rock and dust minerals, and the local particle sizes will all affect the local depth to which heat will penetrate, the absorptivity of the surface, and the emissivity of the surface. In addition, the moon rotates so that the amount of energy from the sun, or reflected from Earth, varies over time upon a given area. Thus, the gradient of energy below the surface will change as the surface cools when sunlight is not incident on it. This sub-surface heat reservoir acts to warm the surface. This introduces a heat convection source, which is not consistent with a black body radiation source.

The situation with the Earth is much worse. All of the problems of the moon exist for the Earth. To which are added the fact that the Earth has a substantial atmosphere in which the radiation absorption length is long. Large thermal gradients will exist in the atmosphere even if it were of uniform composition. It is not. The most important way in which is not is the wide variation of water vapor in it, and still worse, the wide variations in cloud cover. The absorptivity of the atmosphere for solar radiation varies from place to place, as does the emissivity. Compared to the moon, the Earth's surface also has a great variability in the important properties of absorptivity and emissivity from area to area. The South Pacific is different than the Rocky Mountains, Antarctica is different than the Great Plains, the Siberian tundra is different than the Sahara or the Amazon rain forest. These differences alone would create great flows of heat in convection currents even if the Earth did not rotate. In addition, there is much more variation in the depth to which heat will be absorbed in the land areas than on the moon due to more varied compositions. Then, the oceans and water bodies hold very large amounts of energy which is absorbed to comparative large depths straight from incoming radiation and then further distributed in convection currents to great depths and over large lateral distances. All of these large heat flows on Earth cause it to fit the requirements of a black body radiator very poorly.

Let us return to the much simpler case of the moon. It has no atmosphere, no vegetation, and no oceans to muck things up. There is a paper by Martin Hertzberg, Hans Schreuder, and Alan Siddons called A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon?, which Dr. Hertzberg was kind enough to draw my attention to in early June and I have had in mind discussing its very important results ever since. The paper notes that NASA scientists needed to calculate the expected temperatures on the moon's surface prior to a landing. Taking into account the changing radiation on a point on the surface and assuming no heat was absorbed into the surface, the first result is:

When no radiation is incident upon the spot on the surface, the temperature falls to absolute zero! A later calculation took into account some light reflected from Earth when sunlight was not incident. Under that condition, the low temperature was between 30 and 40 Kelvin. But the moon does absorb heat for some depth into its surface and that heat flows to the outer surface as the outer surface cools at "night." So, what did NASA find the temperature profile over the course of day and night to be?

The maximum temperature of the day is no longer noon, since at noon the rock and dust has not yet reached the maximum degree of sub-surface warming. The maximum temperature is actually afternoon, just as it tends to be on Earth. The blue areas in the graph show when the surface temperature is cooler than in the simple black body calculation in the first graph, while the orange areas show when the temperature is warmer. Early in the day, the surface temperature is cooler because surface energy is flowing more rapidly into the cooler sub-surface rock and dust. Late in the day and through the night, the temperature is higher than expected by the black body calculation because heat is flowing to the surface from the sub-surface. The average temperature is raised considerably, because while there is a slight depression of the maximum temperature in the day, there is large increase in the nighttime temperature. By day the average temperature is cooler by 20C, but at night it is warmer by 60C. The average temperature is raised 40C! If the moon had an atmosphere, this would be called the greenhouse effect.

Because the Earth has an atmosphere and because it has oceans over 70% of its surface and the oceans retain huge reservoirs of heat, the variation in temperature throughout a day is much less on Earth than on the moon. But, there is still a rise in the average temperature due to heat convection on land, in the oceans, and in the atmosphere. Heat convection in 3-dimensions creates an effect that looks like the greenhouse effect. Similar effects are observed for all of the planets.

It appears that if any "greenhouse effect" occurs due to CO2 in our atmosphere, that effect is very small compared to the 3-dimensional effects of distributed heat with convection heat transfer. That this is so has long been known by NASA, which nonetheless has played a very major role in the promotion of AGW alarmism on the basis of greenhouse gases! Once again, we find that government is not worthy of our trust. It has promoted terrible damage to our economy on the basis of this greenhouse gas catastrophic warming nonsense. It has been willing to put companies and many employees out of business. It has been happy to promote programs for alternative energy that greatly increase our energy costs and threaten to degrade the quality of our energy systems in use. It has declared CO2 a pollutant and is about to start draconian regulations at great expense, with huge additions to the bureaucracy, and terrible hours of additional paperwork, expert fees, and lawyer fees for many, many companies. Cap and trade schemes have been put forth in its name which will enrich the politically connected, while the average family sees its energy bill go up between $1,700 and $3,500 a year. As Obama says, our energy costs will necessarily skyrocket.

Obama may be fine with skyrocketing energy costs, but you and I should be very angry about it. Not only is the basis in CO2 greenhouse gas theory all wrong, but none of the remediation schemes are even thought likely to benefit the climate in any significant way. Even if the greenhouse effect were substantial, which it is not, all of the energy use restrictions are all pain and no gain. Are we all suddenly masochists? Don't we all have lives to live, places to go, and things we want to make or own? What is this madness that has overcome so many of us? Well, for some it is simple robbery. There are those who are very happy to take advantage of the fact that most people and most Americans in particular, do not know enough science to understand how badly the wool has been pulled over their eyes. There are no two ways about this. The catastrophic man-made global warming scare has been a massive fraud. There are many very evil people promoting this fraud and most of the impetus for it is coming from Democrats. It is very important to make them pay in the elections of 2010 and 2012.

I am a denier of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. It causes me no fear. It does disappoint me that our educated elite are not as bright and independent-minded as they should be.

I also defy the ever-popular cause of big brother government among the college-educated, especially among those with advanced degrees. It causes me no fear. It does disappoint me that our educated elite so despise most other Americans that they think them incapable of choosing their own values and managing their own lives in accordance with their own values. The hubris and ignorance of the elite to think they can do a better job of this than the individual is mind-boggling.

There is no better feeling than that of being a champion of reality. It is a great pleasure to understand and marvel at reality, though one may be shunned by those who shrink their minds into dark pockets of group think.

Group think in humans has an analog in the physical universe: It is the black hole.

By the way, because I signed the Senate Minority Report on Catastrophic Global Warming, I have been called out as an unqualified scientist many times. In one case I was said to be unqualified because I was a biologist, which is one type of scientist my multi-disciplinary career would never allow me to come close to describing myself as being. In other cases, catastrophic AGW people have questioned that I had a Ph.D. Apparently a requirement for a Ph.D. now is thought to be that one must be a qualified group thinker! I have also been told that I must be a NASCAR enthusiast, a right to lifer, a racist, a redneck, trailer trash, a flat-earther, an intelligent design advocate, and a wealth of other things based on no more information than that I evaluated catastrophic AGW as wrong. What could make it more obvious that belief in catastrophic AGW is a part of the indivisible catechism of the educated elite?

Good post.In the realm of "unknown unknowns", alarmism is easily harnessed along with greed and the opportunists.Hence the cult of Catastrophic AGW (CAGW) and the carbon trading opportunists. http://ktwop.wordpress.com/

Thanks for both of my last two commentors for their encouragement. Praise and love are appreciated. It is great to have something to put on the scale to balance out the hate of the man-haters among the environmentalists and some of the socialists. The good stuff is more important because more rational people are more important!

Neither I nor Hertzberg, Siddons, and Schreuder were claiming that the moon is experiencing a greenhouse effect. What they were clearly saying is that there is an effect on the moon, which has no atmosphere, which is also an effect on earth. But on earth, the effect is mistakenly attributed to the greenhouse gas effect.

You will really get a kick in the head from the post I have just put up on 30 June 2010!

I'd like to make 2 points. Firstly - the effect seen on the moon and applicable no doubt to most such bodies including earth, does not lead to the conclusion other effects are not taking place. Secondly - there are people on both sides of this debate who resort to hate language, and in either case I believe it is unacceptable. One of my great concerns regarding current debate is it appears to be creating a large divide fueled by intolerance and often ignorance, that is leading to more and more hate talk, and this is a very bad thing. It is up to all reasonable people, whatever side of this issue they are on, to denounce intolerance and hate.JR

The effect on the Moon repeats in Mars, where the temperature should be 5-6 K below the temperature it actually has. There is no way of explanation to this phenomenon on Mars because the carbon dioxide mass fraction and partial pressure is not enough as for maintaining that warming effect.

I have made some simple calculations on the solar EMRP exerted on the Earth's surface and found that the "warming of the surface by downwelling radiation from the atmosphere" is a complete myth.

Is it better to have a climatologist who does not understand physics posting on long-term climate effects? It appears clear that most of the controlling IPCC "climatologists" do not understand physics and such basic tenets of scientific epistemology as the fact that when your hypothesis predicts a core phenomena and that phenomena does not occur, then the hypothesis is wrong.

"It appears that if any "greenhouse effect" occurs due to CO2 in our atmosphere, that effect is very small compared to the 3-dimensional effects of distributed heat with convection heat transfer. That this is so has long been known by NASA, which nonetheless has played a very major role in the promotion of AGW alarmism on the basis of greenhouse gases!"

Since none of this impinges on AGW theory, it's a bit hard to see what the fuss is about. You'll have a very hard time showing much radiative absorption and reradiation beneath the lunar surface.

This last short comment seems to be saying that the fact that there is a net warming of the moon due to the heat capacity of the surface and the time delays in heat transfer through those surface layers has nothing to do with AGW hypotheses based on the emission of IR radiation from the surface adsorbed by CO2 gas. But, in the case of the Earth, all of the net warming due to the heat capacity of the surface, the atmosphere, and the oceans is attributed by AGW theorists to CO2 IR absorption effects. Clearly this is not the case and the moon situation shows that, while giving us every reason to believe that the effect on Earth of surface material heat capacities will be even greater.

Note also that the comment implies that the AGW theory only examines the effects believed to occur upon surface IR emissions due to CO2 absorption and re-emission. They do not consider the effects of CO2 in absorbing IR coming directly from the sun and thereby preventing energy from reaching the surface. On the incoming solar radiation side there is a cooling effect relative to the ground and on the ground emission side there is supposed to be a warming effect. There is no attempt to examine the balance of the two effects.

There are however some unanswered questions concerning the thermal impact of an atmosphere, and now I'm not talking about some mysterious effect arising from IR-active trace gases.

If we have a look at Venus for example, we observe a huge surface temperature. Going further out in the solar system we find the gas giant Jupiter. Since Jupiter is a gas planet it doesn't even have a well-defined surface and as we move deeper into it the temperature eventually rises to levels far above the earth surface temperature.

Are you aware of any physical models that explain this phenomena? Apparently pressure and temperature seems to follow each other but nobody seems to be able to explain it.

You are very right to point to the effect of adiabatic heating of a gas as its pressure builds up. This effect has long been known to deep miners, for instance. Suppose you open a shaft 2 miles deep into the earth. The gas pressure at the bottom of the shaft is much higher than that at the surface of the Earth. Now right at its opening, the temperature is near that of the surrounding ground, but each delta V of volume of gas as you go deeper into the shaft will have an increasing temperature just due to the building pressure. If P is pressure, V is our delta V volume, n is a mole of gas based on the composition of the gas, and R is a constant, the ideal gas law says PV=nRT, where T is the temperature in Kelvin. So T = (PV)/nR. Since the pressure is increasing and we take each delta volume the same size, the temperature increases as we go deeper. Of course, it might not at first since the ground around the shaft itself may be cooler for a while and it will cool the gas in the shaft. But, that effect will stop as the interior Earth temperature starts to rise and to that is added this adiabatic gas pressure effect. In any case, deep miners have to account for this effect.

Applying this to a planet, especially a gas planet, we have to balance the gravity pulling the gases into a dense atmosphere against the PV=nRT formula where the constant R assumes a constant gravity. Over large distances that will not be true. So in Jupiter the heated gas wants to expand and will create an equilibrium with the force of gravity which tries to compact the gases. In Jupiter's case, the heat of radioactivity is also an actor in this equilibrium.

This is an effect I should discuss at greater length in the future. It does provide a heating effect in our atmosphere as well. Thanks again.

Thank you for your answer. Good that you brought up the deep mines, I guess those could provide a good environment for controlled experiments.

Obviously the empirical evidence points in the direction of important pressure effects on temperature, at least those reported by thermometers. The significance of the temperature gradient as such is of great importance to the greenhouse theory as I will try to explain. First of all, the theory not only predicts an increasing surface temperature as a result of increasing GHGs but also a cooling of the stratosphere. Obviously such a conjecture is not in harmony with the assumption of an adiabatic temperature gradient existing independently of any GHGs.

The ideal gas formula is suggestive, however, there is a subtle complication in the density n. In theory it could adjust to the barometric shape so as to keep the temperature constant. There are a lot of things to say about this, but in order to keep this post short i attach some links that I think captures the essence of the problem, and I look forward to further discussions on the issue. Regards.

Here is something of great importance. Back in 1976, before the major politicization of climate issues, NOAA produced tables of temperature, pressure, mean free path, and many other parameters as a function of altitude for a standard atmosphere with the appropriate concentrations of N2, O2, argon, CO2, neon, helium, krypton, xenon, methane, and H2. No IR-absorption effects were considered and the main greenhouse gas, water vapor, was actually not included in the calculation. At sea level, the temperature of the gas was calculated to be 288.15 Kelvin. At an altitude of 5000 meters, the calculated temperature was 255.68 Kelvin, very close to the 255 Kelvin temperature which is the black body temperature that Earth appears to have from space. This is the effective altitude at which radiative cooling of the Earth occurs. Below this altitude of about 5000 meters, other effects cause the surface of the Earth to be warmer. The Greenhouse Gas hypothesis people say it is because IR long wavelength radiation emitted from the Earth's surface is absorbed by greenhouse gases such as water vapor, CO2, and methane and half of that is re-emitted back to the surface, causing the surface to become warmer by 33 Kelvin or 33 Centigrade.

But, the same table, because this is important to miners, gives the results of the calculations for altitudes below sea level. In addition to the deep mine effect, the reason that the Dead Sea has such high temperatures is because at that altitude of -413 meters, the calculated atmospheric pressure induced temperature is about 2.68 Celsius warmer than it would be at sea level! The temperature from the NOAA tables at -5000 meters, the same change of altitude from sea level as sea level is from the effective black body radiative altitude of +5000 meters, the calculated gas temperature is 320.68 Kelvin. This is 32.53 Celsius warmer than the temperature at sea level. This is about equal to the 33 Celsius warming attributed to the Greenhouse Effect. However, this effect has nothing to do at all with IR radiation, it is due only to the pressure change in the gas mixture of the standard atmosphere used in the calculation.

Charles, you say (and I agree) that the Earth’s average temperature has been empirically measured to be about 288K at ground level and about 255K at 5000 meters altitude, this latter figure being equal to the theoretical ‘black body’ Earth temperature calculated according to Stefan’s Law.

Consequently, the task now is to account for why there is a 33 degC difference in temperature from ground level up to 5000meters as the average IR flux of 240W/m^2 of IR energy from the Earth’s surface flows back upwards. This has to be explained even before we start apportioning blame for future man-made GHGs because we must not lose sight of the fact that (almost all of) this 33degC rise must have a NATURAL explanation!

In logic, of course, the warming MUST be due in some way to the atmosphere. I have seen no other hypothesis put forward, have you? So the big question, over which warmists and skeptics still disagree profoundly, is how the atmosphere creates this 33degC warming effect.

The warmists think that the additional warmth at the surface is due to so-called greenhouse gases, principally H2O, CO2, CH4 and N2O acting like a blanket, making it harder for the Earth’s IR energy to escape upwards, and consequentially (and consistently with Stefan’s Law) requiring a rise in surface temperature to establish the necessary radiative balance. And it’s not really such a bad theory, huh? I am not surprised that this was where all the academic work began 30 years or so ago (it must have been a really exciting time academically for Hansen et. al. back then – helping to save the world is never a bad existential raison d’etre) leading inexorably on to the 20 or more computer models that now grace the world stage, predicting an alarming warming of up to several degrees over the next 100 years due mainly to the burning of fossil fuels..

So what motivates us skeptics to think that this GHG warming theory must be flawed? Well as we all know there is, for the warmists, one very inconvenient empirical observation: over the last 160 years of relatively reliable instrumental measurements, the Earth has only warmed at a rate of about 0.6degC per century. This modest rise in the face of warmist alarmism should alone give all normal people pause for thought. But somehow the world at large has got swept along, whipped up into a frenzy by press reports of melting polar bears and so on, playing straight into the warmist trap.

Since this 0.6degC per century figure has been largely ignored, I suppose it has been a natural human response for the skeptics to try to bolster their (already cast iron) case by putting forward alternative theories that might explain the 33degC difference.

And this is where we are all in danger of coming unstuck.

And, yes, I am afraid, Charles, that you have even done it yourself. You say: “Suppose you open a shaft 2 miles deep into the earth. The gas pressure at the bottom of the shaft is much higher than that at the surface of the Earth…each delta V of volume of gas as you go deeper into the shaft will have an increasing temperature just due to the building pressure…the ideal gas law says PV=nRT… since the pressure is increasing…the temperature increases as we go deeper.”

Sorry, but this is just completely wrong. The temperature increase as you go down into a very deep mine is simply because you are getting closer to the Earth’s molten center. The PV=nRT formula only works for an adiabatic change in P or V or both. That is a change in which heat is inable to flow in or out of the closed system containing the volume of gas under consideration. That is far from the case either in a mine or in the Earth’s atmosphere. In short this theory is a hoary old chestnut, mentioned many times in the climate blogs as an explanation for the 33degC discrepancy. In my opinion it serves only to weaken the skeptics (already cast iron) case.

Nevertheless, congratulations on your general clear exposition and rational approach and long may your blog continue.

Thanks for your comments David Socrates. It is always a pleasure to be able to respond to someone who makes comments under his own name.

The principal reason for the 33C temperature difference between the Earth's surface is not due to an IR effect, since below about 4000 meters altitude IR is not the primary cooling mechanism of the Earth's surface. Transport processes of air convection, of water vapor transport, gas molecule collisions, and the evaporation of liquid water or the sublimation of ice play the more important roles, at least in sum. These processes in sum will support a significant temperature differential, at least compared to that of IR-absorbing gases on IR emitted from the surface. The very fact that the IR radiation equilibrium temperature with respect to space is that of the atmosphere at an altitude of 5,000 meters points to the fact that not too far below that altitude, actually about 4,000 meters, one finds the transition from the greater significance of the other near ground cooling processes to the greater effect of the IR emission cooling process. That IR emission cooling is due mostly to all of the gas molecules dominated by nitrogen and oxygen molecules, not by mostly water vapor and CO2.

The greater part of the temperature differential is contained in the baseline effect of an Ideal Gas in the Earth's gravitational field. For an Ideal Gas in the Earth's gravitational field, each molecule of gas has a higher kinetic energy upon approaching the Earth's surface compared to the kinetic energy it had at the radiation equilibrium altitude of 5000 meters. This is of course since potential energy in the Earth's gravitation field is converted into kinetic energy under the conservation of energy. The temperature of the Ideal Gas is proportional to the kinetic energy of its molecules. Thus, the temperature of the gas in equilibrium in a gravitational field will increase with a decrease in altitude. This in fact accounts for the average 33 C difference in temperature between sea level and the effective IR radiation equilibrium altitude of 5,000 meters. The U.S. Standard Atmosphere of 1976 based on ideal gas calculations and having no infra-red gas absorbing radiation effects included shows this to be the case. In fact, the U.S. Standard Atmosphere does not even have any water vapor in it and that is the primary IR-absorbing gas.

This ideal gas in the Earth's gravitational field provides a baseline of temperature, pressure, density, and molecular speed or kinetic energy with altitude. This equilibrium condition is perturbed by water evaporation and transport and by air convection generally. It also has small perturbations due to IR-absorbing gases, but the IR-absorbing gas effect is small compared to the usual 33 C temperature differential commonly claimed for it in naive catastrophic greenhouse gas theory. In fact, the primary effect of IR-absorbing gases is to moderate the temperature difference between day and night.

Despite the seeming implications of the U.S. Standard Atmosphere, the effect of the Earth's gravitational field on the atmosphere cannot be as large as 33C. It is much smaller, but it is a warming contributor. There is no radiative equilibrium problem of 33C in fact. The radiative equilibrium due to the Earth's emissivity being about 0.7 is only about 9C below the average measured temperature. That 9C is made up by some combination of the gravitational warming effect, the high heat capacity of rock, soil, water, and the lesser heat content of the lower atmosphere with slow heat transport, heat from the Earth's core, radioactive decay, debris from space entering the Earth's atmosphere, tidal effects due to the moon-earth gravitational field, the solar wind, and interactions of the solar and Earth magnetic fields.

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Private correspondence is welcome from interested, rational individualists. There are few enough of us that we should highly value one another and any friendships that might grow from contact.

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Thomas Jefferson

The "sum of good government" is one "which shall restrain men from injuring one another" and "shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement."

The presumption is maximum liberty limited not by the welfare of others, but only by the injunction to do no harm to others.

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"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."

H. L. Mencken

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Madison Versus Hitler

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"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so." Adolf Hitler

Frederic Bastiat

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Mark Twain

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

This certainly applies to those who believe in the catastrophic man-made global warming alarmists, minimum wage laws, ObamaCare, the ethanol in gasoline mandate, and tying solar and wind power in high percentages to the electric grid.

Prof. Walter E. Williams on White Privilege

"The concept of white privilege, along with diversity and multiculturalism, is part of today's campus craze. .....

The bottom line to this campus nonsense is that "privilege" has become the new word for "personal achievement." ....

Are those who work hard, take risks, make life better for others and become wealthy in the process the people who should be held up to ridicule and scorn? And should we make mascots out of social parasites?"

Prof. John Christy, Climate Scientist

“If it’s not economically sustainable, it’s not sustainable.”

Ayn Rand on Human Progress

"Man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress."

George Orwell

"The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced to do so by the entire body; this means merely that he will be forced to be free."

If one is told " 'it is expedient for the state that you should die,' he should die."

From The Social Contract, a most emphatic statement of authoritarian collectivism by a profound misanthropist.

Patrick Henry

"The Constitution is NOT an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the PEOPLE to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interest."

Alexander Hamilton

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government."

Milton Friedman

“A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it ... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

John Quincy Adams

"Muhammad declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind... The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Muhammad is the prophet of God."

Justice Robert H. Jackson

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."

This applies to the government-run education system, as well as every other act of government, including its procurements.

Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead

"Don't bother to examine a folly, ask only what it accomplishes."

Ayn Rand's villain giving us insight into the beliefs of the Progressive Elitists and others with beliefs too divorced from reality to be creditable, yet widely believed or propagated.

Thomas Jefferson

"let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution."

Of course this belief implies those great constraints on democracy imposed by the Constitution.

About Me

I enjoy rational analytical conversations, learning from thinking people, and solving problems of science and technology. My perspective is that of an Objectivist with a joyous sense of life, a great appreciation for human complexity, differentiation, and achievement, and a benevolent regard for others. Nothing clarifies understanding like writing about it or trying to teach ideas. A recurring theme is the importance of individuality and the fight for individual rights against the onslaught of the Nanny State and socialism. I wish to live the life of a rational self-managing adult and am amazed that so many others wish to be perpetual children. The fear, envy, and guilt that cause many to yield their individual rights to collectivism are ugly, anti-life emotions. I consistently believe in both the personal and the economic rights of the sovereign individual. As the United States Declaration of Independence says, each of us has the selfish right to our life, our liberty, and our pursuit of happiness. Our mostly ignored Constitution attempts to severely limit the powers of the federal government and to preserve the development and the exercise of our individual conscience.

Robert Tracinski

"The real minimum wage is zero. Actually, it’s less than zero: the real “minimum wage” is going into debt just to have a shot at doing the work you love."

I went hugely into debt to set up my materials analysis laboratory and paid myself only $10,000 in the first year.

Obama

“When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new.” 2015 State of the Union Address

So, we should ditch Big Government, government health care, The War on Poverty, The War on Drugs, Social Security, the Federal Reserve, government-run education, the Davis-Bacon Act, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (the Jones Act), and all expansionist interpretations of the Interstate Commerce and the Taxation Clauses of the Constitution upon this Obama Principle of Failure.

Louis L'Amour

"when in doubt, sit down and think. It is only the mind of man that has lifted him above the animals." Evie's Dad

"If he starts anything with me I'll just cloud up and rain all over him." Conagher

"You better ride out of here, Staples. An' leave that gun alone. You ain't fit to handle one. And don't you cross my trail again. I don't like bein' braced by no tin-horn." Conagher

"To be a man was to be responsible. It was as simple as that. To be a man was to build something, to try to make the world about him a bit easier to live in for himself and those who followed." Conagher

"it was the man who planted a tree, dug a well, or graded a road who mattered."

"Conagher had worked too hard too many times to like a thief or a vandal who would steal or destroy the efforts of other men."

Big Bill Knudsen on Progress

"Progress is only made when fear is overcome by curiosity. If you are curious enough, you will not have any fear."

Bastiat on Plunder as a Way of Life

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." Frederic Bastiat, 1801-1850

Elbert Hubbard

"Prison is a Socialist's Paradise, where equality prevails, everything is supplied, and competition is eliminated."

Charles R. Anderson

"Every law mandates more guns. Most laws now outlaw individual value choices and more voluntary cooperation among individuals."

Bad Deeds by Robert Bidinotto

2nd Great Thriller about Bringing Justice to Eco Terrorists -- Nominated for Conservative-Libertarian Fiction Book of the Year 2014

Charles Anderson on Hope

".... hope is contingent upon having the freedom to make your own value choices and make their achievement your personal dream. Without the dream, there is no hope. Without the value choice, there is no dream."

A Collapsing Predation, a Plea for Salvation

"These are just plain, ordinary people, Mr. Galt, " said Chick Morrison in a tone intended to project their abject humility. "They can't tell you what to do. They wouldn't know. They're merely begging you. They may be weak, helpless, blind, ignorant. But you, who are so intelligent and strong, can't you take pity on them? Can't you help them?" "By dropping my intelligence and following their blindness?" "They may be wrong, but they don't know any better!" "But I, who do, should obey them?"

From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Sen. Tom Coburn Addressing the Senate

"Your whole goal is to protect the United States of America, its Constitution and its liberties. It's not to provide benefits for your state. That's where we differ -- that's where my conflict with my colleagues has come. It's nice to be able to do things for your state, but that isn't our charge. Our charge is to protect the future of our country by upholding the Constitution." December 2014

James Madison on Laws

"It will be of little avail to the people ... if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood."

Yet this is exactly the sorry state of law in America today.

Charles R. Anderson on Argument

"Observe which side resorts to the most vociferous name-calling and you are likely to have identified the side with the weaker argument and they know it."

From my statement in the Senate Minority Report of 2008 on Man-Made Global Warming Claims.

Ben Franklin

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Ayn Rand on Force and Morality

"Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins." From Atlas Shrugged

The Neverending Battle for Freedom

Requires a Knowledge of Moral and Political Principles

Winston Churchill

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."

Ludwig von Mises

"A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings."

Ayn Rand on Truth Seeking

"The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it."

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D.

Charles in Laboratory

Benno Schmidt, President of Yale, March 1991

"The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses ... The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind."

Tacitus, 56 - 120 A.D.

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. "

The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state.

George Eliot

"The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular -- but one must take it because it's right."

Is that not all times?

Public Servant Tyrants

"The people must remain ever vigilant against tyrants masquerading as public servants." George Washington

Aristotle on Inequality

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal."

Claiming unequal things equal in mathematics is obviously wrong, but so is claiming the equality of an individual with good character to an individual of bad character fraught with deleterious consequences.

Ayn Rand on Excellence

"If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing."

Mencken on Public Education

"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: It is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality." Henry Louis Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Thomas Edison

"From his neck down, a man is worth a couple of dollars a day; from his neck up, he is worth anything his brain can invent."

Anderson Materials Evaluation, Inc.

Materials Characterization and Failure Analysis Laboratory

Ayn Rand on Self-Assurance

"But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself." From The Fountainhead

Frederick Douglass

“A man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.”

William S. Knudsen

"A conference is a gathering of guys that singly can do nothing and together decide nothing can be done."

Big Bill Knudsen was the manufacturing genius from the automotive industry who decided that U.S. WWII warfare production should be performed in the private sector with as little government interference as possible. U.S. production overwhelmed that of the Axis Powers as a result and the transition back to peace-time production was vastly eased. He is a little-recognized American Hero.

Margaret Thatcher

"Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy."

Pajama Boy for ObamaCare

I'll be an adult when I am 26. I have no job and live with Mommy. I will get a big subsidy when I go on ObamaCare. Good thing, because medical insurance costs for young men in my state are 2 to 3 times what they used to be. If my gender studies degree ever gets me a job, medical insurance will cost me a fortune. I'd rather just sit at home drinking hot chocolate and have Mommy feed me and do my laundry.

Ayn Rand on Lack of Self-Direction

"The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap." From The Fountainhead

Bastiat on Socialism

"Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole—with their common aim of legal plunder—constitute socialism." Frederic Bastiat, 1801-1850

James Madison

Property is "every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage."

"He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person. He has equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them."

"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."

"That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property so called."

"If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property: which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, ... such a government is not a pattern for the United States."

[Yet such a property violating government we now have.]

Obama According to Ron Pisaturo

"My opponents don’t have a plan for the economy, for education, for training, for retirement, for health care, for energy, for jobs, for wages, for investments, for diets. What kind of dictators are they?"

Ron Pisaturo's paraphrase of Obama's State of the Union Address in January 2014.

John Galt on the Battle

John Galt says in Galt's Speech in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:

Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

Groucho Marx

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."

Charles in Pensacola, FL

Boy with a Purpose

Andrew Jackson

"Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers -- who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government .... If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, [government] would be an unqualified blessing."

Jay Leno

"The White House admitted President Obama’s chief of staff had advance warning that the IRS was targeting conservative groups. President Obama says the first time he heard about the IRS and AP scandals was from the media. See, that’s why President Obama holds press conferences. It’s not to explain what’s going on. It’s to find out what’s going on."

Government is too big to be well-managed even by a competent manager. It is now apparent what happens when the chief executive is incompetent, but is convinced he is the chief Progressive Elitist.

Thomas Jefferson

"The democracy will cease when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

James I, King of Great Britain

"The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods."

There is historical precedent for the level of hubris of the Progressive Elitist rulers of our time. Just as James I tried to rule independently of Parliament with a claim of god-like knowledge, so does Obama rule independently of our Congress, secure in the belief that he too has a god-like knowledge of what is best for the People.

Calvin Coolidge

Reduced top income tax rate to 25%.Reduced the national debt.Balanced and reduced the budget.Vetoed 50 bills.

"I am for economy, and after that I am for more economy.”

“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”

Gen LaGreca's New Novel

A Dream of Daring - A thickly plotted romantic novel

Jean Jacques Burlamaqui

"Natural liberty is the right, which nature gives to all mankind, of disposing of their persons and property, after the manner they judge most convenient to their happiness, on condition of their acting within the limits of the law of nature, and their not abusing it to the prejudice of their fellow men. To this right of liberty there is a reciprocal obligation corresponding, by which the law of nature binds all mankind to respect the liberty of other men, and not to disturb them in the use they make of it, so long as they do not abuse it."

Kail M. Padgitt, of the Tax Foundation produced the 2011 State Business Tax Climate Index in October. The report evaluates the effects of...

Pamela Geller

In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel, Defeat Jihad

Roger Scruton, 2006

The English law existed not to control the individual but to free him.

Laurence J. Peter

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

Ben Franklin - 2nd Amendment

"Democracy... Is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty... Is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." This is why every individual has the right to defend himself, as recognized in the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

John Milton

"Where there is much desire to learn, here of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making."

Cato's Letters

"the power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his own Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys."

They Would Rule the People

Rather than Serve the People

Starve the Kleptocracy and Tyranny

and Promote the General Welfare by Protecting Individual Rights

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

More Important than Ever

Atlas Shrugged, Part II

The Movie, Either-Or, Now on DVD

Democracy -- The Suicide

"Remember democracy never lasts long. It soonwastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814

Do Not Subordinate Your Mind to the Mind of Another

The vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.

John Galt in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Thomas Jefferson

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Praise the Constitution

and Pass the Intellectual Ammunition

Ayn Rand: Philosophical Detection

What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an "open mind", but an active mind -- a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgment, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants -- a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear.

If you keep an active mind, you will discover (assuming that you started with common-sense rationality) that every challenge you examine will strengthen your convictions, that the conscious, reasoned rejection of false theories will help you to clarify and amplify the true ones, that your ideological enemies will make you invulnerable by providing countless demonstrations of their own impotence.

Alan MacFarlane, 1978

The majority of ordinary people in England from at least the thirteenth century were rampant individualists, highly mobile both geographically and socially, economically rational, market-oriented and acquisitive, ego-centered in kinship and social life. Perhaps this is no surprise, for it makes them very like their descendants.

On Error and Judgment by Ayn Rand

An error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.

Howard Roark at his trial:

"I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need." .....

"I wished to come and say that the integrity of a man's creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who're destroying the world." ...

"I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society."

Thomas Jefferson

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

A federal judge has ruled that the Washington Redskins cannot be allowed trademark protections for the name Redskins because that name is of...

California Venus

Rupert Schmid, 1864-1932

George Bernard Shaw

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

Paul's immorality is soon characteristic of the entire society, contributing evermore to strife and conflict.

Fight Big Government

Reduce Spending

Thomas Paine on Principle

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."

Limited Government Capitalism

is the only system that allows Individuals to make their own moral choices and to act upon them. Without individual moral choice, there is no morality and society is mean, brutal, envious, and depressing.

The Homage of Reason

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

Tocqueville

“a man’s admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him”.

First ObamaCare Stole Your Body

Minimum Family Plan = $20,000

In the name of the best within you,

do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.

But to win it requires your total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence of that which is man: for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the Morality of Life and that yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, and grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.

Immoral Government Health Care

Barack Hussein Obama

Consensus

Consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually"- Abba Eban

Obama's Socialism

Absolutely Childish, Banal Thinking

Rose Robbins - Singer/Songwriter

A Goddess would envy her voice.

Who is John Galt?

From John Galt's Speech to Americans in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:

"I am the man who loves his life. I am the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values."

"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act, he must know the nature and purpose of his action."

"But to think is an act of choice." ..... "In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade that effort. But you are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival -- so that for you, who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be" is the question 'to think or not to think.'

"A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. 'Value' is that which one acts to gain and keep, 'virtue' is the action by which one gains and keeps it. 'Value' presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? 'Value' presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. Where there are no alternatives, no values are possible."

"There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence -- and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms."

"Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice -- and the alternative his nature offers is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man -- by choice; he has to hold his life as a value -- by choice; he has to learn to sustain it -- by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues -- by choice."

"A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality."

"Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man -- for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life."

"Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness -- to value the failure of your values -- is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altar of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man -- every man -- is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose."

Thus said John Galt, or shall we say Ayn Rand, the great novelist, philosopher, moralist, and Capitalism's greatest moral defender. The quoted sections above are an abridgment of John Galt's speech in the novel Atlas Shrugged. Between the quotes, no changes were made.

A Call to the Sons of Liberty

This is not the time for summer soldiers. This is a time of American crisis calling for winter soldiers.

John Paul Jones

I have not yet begun to fight! The image is from the Navy Memorial.

Thomas Jefferson:

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

Charles R. Anderson, Ph. D.

The First Known Use of the Concept Freedom

Amagi, or Freedom, in the cuneiform shown above, is first known to have appeared in a clay document in 2300 BC in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.

The Rational Mind Seeks Truth

in the critical observation and understanding of reality. Reality is primary, not man's wishes and whims.